OUCCC vs StJohns

at StJohns, April 24th 2005

A new season, new faces, new insults and old farts. It must be the start of the cricket season. We started off against st.johns at their ground which is one of the best batting tracks we play on all season. The admissions tutors at st johns must have a thing for curly haired young boys as most of their team had been to the barbers with a grubby picture of a 1970's Kevin keegan in their hands.

Our team had a mix of old and new to it. Me, tony, sam, martin with 5 years service or more. Chris, ed, phil, shoaib, Adrian, tom newish with Thomas s somewhere in between. I think the new boys did the business with the bat and the oldies with the ball.

Martin stood in as skip after weisner decided to fall on his ankle in training. He then lost the toss and we had to field. In our usual tardy way we had to borrow a fielder until shoaib turned up. He was put on to bowl straight away with martin at the other end, both got some swing but the oppo openers were quite good, particularly their lefthand skipper. I think they put on about 50-60 before sam came on and got the other opener c+b. Their scoring ticked over but never seemed to get away from us. The danger was always from their opener who took a particular liking for sams bowling. That changed when Thomas came on and got him caught behind by phil, nice work. Sam got another wicket, shoaib got one towards the end, Adrian took a catch and that's all I can remember. Oppo finished on 226 off 40 overs

A fine tea washed down with some top totty on the veranda.

Me and ed opened the batting. Ed decided to chip a catch to mid on 2nd ball but it was dropped. Their openers were getting swing but didn't trouble us too much, gave us a few long hops which we dispatched. "Keen young boys!!" said brigadier McNally on the boundary as five of them went to field one I hit over the top. Like the oppo we got to 50 before I cut one in the air to backward point where the oppo skipper took a good catch. Chris came in and got a few, ed started to open up more but their bowlers kept it tight and their fielders ran like whippets. Chris got out and phil came in. Ed got to 70 odd then got run out. Tom came in and it was getting tight, with 15 overs to go we needed about 9 per over. We kept up with the rate until tom fell on his sword. Sam and phil kept it going with quick run 2's and the tension was building. 3 overs to go needing 20. sam skies one and Thomas comes in. 2 overs to go needing 15 and its getting dark. 9 needed off the last. Wide ball, 1, 2, dot ball,2 1, and tom hit the last over the bowler for a quick run 2. winners off the last ball. 50 for phil.